Micro-LED LiFi: Where every light source in the world is also TV, and provides gigabit internet access | ExtremeTech

Micro-LED LiFi: Where every light source in the world is also TV, and provides gigabit internet access

By Sebastian Anthony on February 1, 2013 at 11:03 am

Researchers at the University of Strathclyde in Scotland has begun the task of bringing high-speed, ubiquitous, LiFi technology to market. If Martin Dawson and Harald Haas have their way, any illuminated device — your TV, your bedside lamp, a road sign, a train or airport timetable — might soon double up as a wireless LiFi hotspot.

LiFi, as you may have guessed, stands for Light-Fidelity — as in, Wireless-Fidelity (WiFi), but using visible light instead of gigahertz radio waves. How LiFi works is very simple: You have an a light on one end (an LED in this case), and a photodetector (light sensor) on the other. If the LED is on, the photodetector registers a binary one; otherwise it’s a binary zero. Flash the LED enough times and you build up a message. Use an array of LEDs, and perhaps a few different colors, and very soon you are dealing with data rates in the range of hundreds or megabits per second.